Theme songs of a different kind

Theme songs like “Earth Song,” about music and singing and what it means to us, are familiar to choruses. The wonderful Capital District Youth Chorale has as its theme song – its truly official theme song with which they end every year, “Music, You are a Friend to Me,” and it makes me cry every year.

Our Ireland tour had a set of wonderful music by living American composers, and it included some of the quasi-theme songs I mentioned in previous posts: “Sing Me to Heaven,” “Earth Song,” and our own Steve Murray’s “o by the by” on an e. e. cumming poem. The last piece in the set was by a young American composer, Eric Barnum, on a poem I’ve known and admired for decades. In fact, I set it as a song for voice and piano in about 1976 or so, though I don’t think anyone has ever heard it.

The poem by English poet James Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). It’s a really wonderful love poem. But it was never a theme song of any kind until recently, when I discovered Barnum’s choral setting. Now it has become a personal theme song of a completely different kind than “Earth Song.” As you can understand after reading it, it becomes more and more my own theme every year!